Mid-week Newsletter for Wednesday, May 14, 2025
A New Project for Pearl and Me As We Remember a Dear Departed Friend from the 1980’s
Here is the working cover for our next possible book. It features one of Pearl’s original crayon illustrations. (Yes, chickens can draw as long as they have the tools and the skills. “If You Give a Chicken a Crayon…”)
At Pearl’s insistence, this project all started with a drawing by Pearl of how she imagined her life to be if she could choose how it should go.
What you will find in this book will be Pearl’s favorite stories from The Ancient Words that she heard as The Songbirds of The Living Library sang them in The Backyard Garden over the years. They sang them in The Language of The Birds. She sang them to me in The Language of Chickens, which my Gracie had taught me when she was here with us. I am writing them down for you in The Language of People.
I will admit that seems like a great deal of translation from one language to another, but I must add that the underlying foundation is The Language of the Heart. That is the only language made by God and it can be understood by all animals who have a voice to speak and a heart to feel.
I will also admit that it seems like an immense undertaking for a chickens, even with my help.
Finally, I will admit that Pearl also made this illustration to encourage me. (She is such a clever girl!)
Both of these illustrations were done by Pearl in her own style using crayons on found paper scraps she had collected. Afterwards I turned them into digital art so that they could be presented to you here online.
You may notice several things in common for these two pictures. They both show Pearl and a book. They also show five children who represent my five grand-nieces and grand-nephews who are the grandchildren of my sister and brother-in-law. Pearl and I want this project to be published and dedicated to them with the hope that they will treasure these stories and chickens throughout their lives.
This is currently being shared on Wordpress at this link. We would like to have a separate dedicated Wordpress website and will let you know when that is done. We will still use Substack to keep everyone up-to-date!
Pearl wants to call this project and her book “The Ancient Words” or “When a Chicken Finds a Crayon.” Right now we are calling it “Pearl’s Own Ancient Words.” We are also considering expanding to a separate Wordpress website with a title to match Pearl’s book. We will keep you posted on new developments!
Until Next Time…
Thanks for reading, and we appreciate our family, friends, and fans.
Sincerely,
John and Pearl
Oops! And Before We Forget…
As mentioned in the subtitle, today as a Day of Remembrance for a Dear Friend on his birthday. He left us quite a few years ago, but he was extremely influential is helping me along the way, and he would have loved Pearl and all of my other chickens. One of the greatest things he ever did for me was to teach me how to tie a real tie using a Windsor Knot. No more clip-on ties or bow ties for me! Perhaps I will tell you more in a future post, but the message for now is this:
You never know what little things you may do for someone else that will have a truly great impact on that person’s life! This is true for even the little things like teaching someone how to tie a tie or bake cookies like June Cleaver.
“Pearl Dressed Up as June Cleaver and Getting Ready to Bake Cookies” Illustration by the Author
Very sweet. And the photos are amazing. Even June Cleaver would be impressed.